Hand-on_ex3b

Author

Lin Yan

Programming Animated Statistical Graphics with R

1. Getting Started

1.1 Loading the R packages

First, write a code chunk to check, install and load the following R packages:

plotly, R library for plotting interactive statistical graphs.
gganimate, an ggplot extension for creating animated statistical graphs.
gifski converts video frames to GIF animations using pngquant’s fancy features for efficient cross-frame palettes and temporal dithering. It produces animated GIFs that use thousands of colors per frame.
gapminder: An excerpt of the data available at Gapminder.org. We just want to use its country_colors scheme.
tidyverse, a family of modern R packages specially designed to support data science, analysis and communication task including creating static statistical graphs.

pacman::p_load(readxl, gifski, gapminder,
               plotly, gganimate, tidyverse)


The downloaded binary packages are in
    /var/folders/zh/67j59v916z17skl95tl1wmzw0000gn/T//RtmpkAMbmV/downloaded_packages


gifski installed


The downloaded binary packages are in
    /var/folders/zh/67j59v916z17skl95tl1wmzw0000gn/T//RtmpkAMbmV/downloaded_packages


gapminder installed

also installing the dependencies 'proxy', 'e1071', 'wk', 'classInt', 's2', 'units', 'sf', 'lpSolve', 'transformr', 'tweenr'


The downloaded binary packages are in
    /var/folders/zh/67j59v916z17skl95tl1wmzw0000gn/T//RtmpkAMbmV/downloaded_packages


gganimate installed

1.2 Importing the data

In this hands-on exercise, the Data worksheet from GlobalPopulation Excel workbook will be used.

Write a code chunk to import Data worksheet from GlobalPopulation Excel workbook by using appropriate R package from tidyverse family.

col <- c("Country", "Continent")
globalPop <- read_xls("data/GlobalPopulation.xls",
                      sheet="Data") %>%
  mutate_each_(funs(factor(.)), col) %>%
  mutate(Year = as.integer(Year))

Warning: `mutate_each_()` was deprecated in dplyr 0.7.0.
ℹ Please use `across()` instead.

Warning: `funs()` was deprecated in dplyr 0.8.0.
ℹ Please use a list of either functions or lambdas:

# Simple named list: list(mean = mean, median = median)

# Auto named with `tibble::lst()`: tibble::lst(mean, median)

# Using lambdas list(~ mean(., trim = .2), ~ median(., na.rm = TRUE))

Things to learn fro the code chunk above

read_xls() of readxl package is used to import the Excel worksheet.
mutate_each_() of dplyr package is used to convert all character data type into factor.
mutate of dplyr package is used to convert data values of Year field into integer.

Unfortunately, mutate_each_() was deprecated in dplyr 0.7.0. and funs() was deprecated in dplyr 0.8.0. In view of this, we will re-write the code by using mutate_at() as shown in the code chunk below.

col <- c("Country", "Continent")
globalPop <- read_xls("data/GlobalPopulation.xls",
                      sheet="Data") %>%
  mutate_at(col, as.factor) %>%
  mutate(Year = as.integer(Year))

Instead of using mutate_at(), across() can be used to derive the same outputs.

col <- c("Country", "Continent")
globalPop <- read_xls("data/GlobalPopulation.xls",
                      sheet="Data") %>%
  mutate(across(col, as.factor)) %>%
  mutate(Year = as.integer(Year))

2. Animated Data Visualisation: gganimate methods

gganimate extends the grammar of graphics as implemented by ggplot2 to include the description of animation. It does this by providing a range of new grammar classes that can be added to the plot object in order to customise how it should change with time.

transition_*() defines how the data should be spread out and how it relates to itself across time.
view_*() defines how the positional scales should change along the animation.
shadow_*() defines how data from other points in time should be presented in the given point in time.
enter_*()/exit_*() defines how new data should appear and how old data should disappear during the course of the animation.
ease_aes() defines how different aesthetics should be eased during transitions.

2.1 Building a static population bubble plot

In the code chunk below, the basic ggplot2 functions are used to create a static bubble plot.

ggplot(globalPop, aes(x = Old, y = Young, 
                      size = Population, 
                      colour = Country)) +
  geom_point(alpha = 0.7, 
             show.legend = FALSE) +
  scale_colour_manual(values = country_colors) +
  scale_size(range = c(2, 12)) +
  labs(title = 'Year: {frame_time}', 
       x = '% Aged', 
       y = '% Young')

2.2 Building the animated bubble plot

In the code chunk below,

transition_time() of gganimate is used to create transition through distinct states in time (i.e. Year).
ease_aes() is used to control easing of aesthetics. The default is linear. Other methods are: quadratic, cubic, quartic, quintic, sine, circular, exponential, elastic, back, and bounce.

The animated bubble chart:

ggplot(globalPop, aes(x = Old, y = Young, 
                      size = Population, 
                      colour = Country)) +
  geom_point(alpha = 0.7, 
             show.legend = FALSE) +
  scale_colour_manual(values = country_colors) +
  scale_size(range = c(2, 12)) +
  labs(title = 'Year: {frame_time}', 
       x = '% Aged', 
       y = '% Young') +
  transition_time(Year) +       
  ease_aes('linear')

3. Animated Data Visualisation: plotly

In Plotly R package, both ggplotly() and plot_ly() support key frame animations through the frame argument/aesthetic. They also support an ids argument/aesthetic to ensure smooth transitions between objects with the same id (which helps facilitate object constancy).

3.1 Building an animated bubble plot: `ggplotly()`

We will create an animated bubble plot by using ggplotly() method.

gg <- ggplot(globalPop, 
       aes(x = Old, 
           y = Young, 
           size = Population, 
           colour = Country)) +
  geom_point(aes(size = Population,
                 frame = Year),
             alpha = 0.7, 
             show.legend = FALSE) +
  scale_colour_manual(values = country_colors) +
  scale_size(range = c(2, 12)) +
  labs(x = '% Aged', 
       y = '% Young')

Warning in geom_point(aes(size = Population, frame = Year), alpha = 0.7, :
Ignoring unknown aesthetics: frame

ggplotly(gg)

Warning in p$x$data[firstFrame] <- p$x$frames[[1]]$data: number of items to
replace is not a multiple of replacement length

The animated bubble plot above includes a play/pause button and a slider component for controlling the animation.

Notice that although show.legend = FALSE argument was used, the legend still appears on the plot. To overcome this problem, theme(legend.position='none') should be used as shown in the plot and code chunk below.

gg <- ggplot(globalPop, 
       aes(x = Old, 
           y = Young, 
           size = Population, 
           colour = Country)) +
  geom_point(aes(size = Population,
                 frame = Year),
             alpha = 0.7) +
  scale_colour_manual(values = country_colors) +
  scale_size(range = c(2, 12)) +
  labs(x = '% Aged', 
       y = '% Young') + 
  theme(legend.position='none')

Warning in geom_point(aes(size = Population, frame = Year), alpha = 0.7):
Ignoring unknown aesthetics: frame

ggplotly(gg)

Warning in p$x$data[firstFrame] <- p$x$frames[[1]]$data: number of items to
replace is not a multiple of replacement length

3.2 Building an animated bubble plot: plot_ly()

We will create an animated bubble plot by using plot_ly() method.

bp <- globalPop %>%
  plot_ly(x = ~Old, 
          y = ~Young, 
          size = ~Population, 
          color = ~Continent,
          sizes = c(2, 100),
          frame = ~Year, 
          text = ~Country, 
          hoverinfo = "text",
          type = 'scatter',
          mode = 'markers'
          ) %>%
  layout(showlegend = FALSE)
bp

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4. Reference

Getting Started
Visit this link for a very interesting implementation of gganimate.
Building an animation step-by-step with gganimate.
Creating a composite gif with multiple gganimate panels